If Obama wanted to "spread the wealth around", why did he give hundreds of billions to Wall Street?

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't those investment bank executives (the ones who destroyed the financial system) make an average of 10 million dollars a year? Why did they need our taxpayer dollars? The boys at Bear Sterns drove their bank into the ground, and then we gave them a mive tax dollar bailout. Same with Merril Lynch. We let Lehman Brothers go under, and the sky didn't fall. Isn't Obama supposed to spread the money around to poor people, or did I just misunderstand him?